With the release of "The Iron Giant: Signature Edition" coming this fall, Brad Bird has been on the press tour being questioned, as usual, about his progress on The Incredibles 2. In his most recent interview with Collider, Bird disclosed some very interesting information regarding not just basic story details, but also the release date and even more context of where the sequel will play amongst the other "super" competition. More on the interview after the break!

Bird started writing the script for the film earlier this year, and he provided a brief status update on where he was in the process:BRAD BIRD: I have the story arc. I’m probably three-quarters through the script, first pass through the script, but we’re already boarding parts of it. I’ve got a lot of people that worked on the first one working on it, so we’re all having a good time with it.

Regarding a release date, it’s still up in the air. But here’s what Bird had to say:BIRD: In terms of the release date, we were originally—Incredibles was supposed to happen after Cars, and our wheels just happened to click a little earlier so they moved us up. Release dates are a little fluid when you’re making films so far in advance. Some films are tougher to come together and tough nuts to crack, and other ones comes together a little more quickly, and so I’m just going to work as fast as I can work well with a relatively small team because I like small teams better until you’ve got everything firmly figured out.[Update: A representative for Bird reached out to clarify that the release date shuffle Bird was referring to was for how the first Incredibles related to the first Cars, not how Incredibles 2 relates to Cars 3]

As for what we can expect from the upcoming sequel, Bird didn’t divulge any plot details (no surprise there), but he did note that there are far more superhero movies out there than there were when The Incredibles was released in 2004:BIRD: But what’s changed is there were only two other superhero franchises at the time Incredibles came out. One of them was X-Men and the other was Spider-Man, and now there are 400 billion of them and there’s a new superhero movie every two weeks. What you don’t want to do is trot over the same turf in the same way everyone else is. So we’re trying to keep it focused in the area that our film was, which was a little bit more about characters and relationships and stuff like that, and see where that takes us. But we’re having a good time.

There you have it! So exciting to finally get something out of him after months and months of speculation. I do want to note a couple things. One is concerning the release date. Since there was an update to the article regarding The Incredibles and Cars shuffle referring to the first films, from 2004 and 2006 respectively, there is no confirmation that Incredibles 2 will be released before Cars 3. With that said, it does seem that from what we have (or haven't) heard there is more progress being made with Incredibles 2 than Cars 3. If I were to speculate on which would come first, my inclination would be to say that Incredibles 2 will come Summer 2018 and Cars 3 would come Summer 2019. Again, no confirmation.

I also found it interesting that Bird noted the change in the super-hero dynamic of the film market that the sequel will be faced against. I have no doubt that the new film will be a success, both critically and financially, but it has the unique ability in today's market to touch on some key aspects of what we love so much about superhero films that other mega-franchises can't. Since the novelty of having supers around in the world of The Incredibles hasn't faded (unlike The Avengers, X-Men, and Justice League), the film has the opportunity to hit a very wide spectrum of both superhero fans and also audiences who may be experiencing some superhero fatigue. Either way, check back here for more updates on the progress of The Incredibles 2, both in the next several months and, obviously, the coming years!